Injection of fluid mixtures in the form of vapors or gases into the air intake streams of internal combustion engines in aircraft is well known. Alcohol-water mixtures have been introduced into these engines to reduce preignition and allow higher effective power when required. Alcohol-water mixtures have been used because of the extremely high latent heat of vaporization of the mixture. However, the use of such devices in automobile engines has met with limited success. This has been due to some extent to the limited ability of these systems to provide an increased quantity of the mixture at times of increased load or acceleration or in less quantities when less mixture is needed.
The scarcity and increasing costs of hydrocarbon fuels coupled with the federal regulations governing permissible emissions from internal combustion engines used in automobiles and the like have created a need for a system to lower emissions and/or increase efficiency in the internal combustion engines. Techniques for lowering emissions have been primarily directed to systems such as catalytic converters and air injector reactor systems and the like for removing toxic or otherwise undesirable emissions from the exhaust. Such systems produce no useful work and therefore do not increase efficiency.